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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Greg Koch Responds

I called out Greg Koch, founder and impresario at Stone Brewing, last week over historical comments he made in a video over at the New School. I got the long response to that you see below. I'll leave the comments open, but watch them pretty closely. If you want to take a personal shot at Greg, me, or anyone, have the courage to sign your name--otherwise I'll delete it. Greg has taken the opportunity to open this up to conversation--and I appreciate the time and effort--so let's keep things on the high road, shall we? I'll give this post over to Greg and respond in comments.

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Jeff (and everyone), thanks for the conversation. I find conversations about my favorite subject (craft beer of course!) to always be invigorating and intriguing. And, on some, but-usually-quite-rare occasions, to be controversial. In this case, it seems to be the latter, but should it? Did my comments really qualify? Well, let’s take a look…

First off, you state “Many people have voiced criticisms of Greg because of his tendency to voice thoughts as they appear in his brain without the slightest filter--very often impolitic thoughts.” It’s certainly true that I’ve gotten some critiques over the years. Such is the reality of putting yourself out there on a regular basis. However, I actually try NOT to say controversial things most of the time. Some might be surprised, but one of my personal challenges is wearing my heart on my sleeve a bit. I think I allow myself to get too bummed out by critiques and mischaracterizations to be honest. Even small ones sometimes kick me to the curb. I lay there a bit, stew occasionally, but then get up, brush off, and remind myself its just part of the equation. My other choice is to just stay home, or perhaps to pretend that I’m less passionate about this biz than I am and keep outta the conversation. Faced with those choices, I guess I’d best just continue to learn how to take the hits, ‘cause I’m just not the type to stay home or be a shrinking violet.

But really? “Without the slightest filter” and “very often impolitic”? I think my occasionally “out there” persona coupled with naming a beer “Arrogant Bastard Ale” back in 1997 may be skewing the perception of me a bit, but alas, so be it. I do wonder what examples you might cite however. Of the easily over 300 vids I’ve shot and uploaded to the interwebs over the years (this being one of the first), or others have, probably less than a dozen involve a megaphone or crowd surfing, and probably only a small handful more have me saying anything that 9 out of 10 folks would be considered controversial.

Forgive me for being an old-schooler here, but I suppose I could have referenced the current GABF category and what they now call an “Imperial Red Ale” rather than what used to be called an “American Strong Ale.” The latter, as a style description, has become a bit wide in its perception, and thus has been narrowed-down with more specific style categories. I am well aware of Hair of the Dog and their terrific beers. Hair of the Dog Rose was the first beer I ever consumed at our “not yet ours” warehouse/future brewery location on Mata Way in San Marcos, CA when I had the keys to it for the weekend in late 1995 (so that Steve and I could draw chalk circles on the warehouse floor to help us determine how we might lay out our brewery if we were to sign a lease on the space). Years late--around the year 2000--we started distributing other brands of beer in SoCal in addition to our own, and I was able to convince Alan Sprints to allow us to represent his terrific beers in our region (sadly, due to perhaps being too far ahead of the curve, either in our learning curve as a young wholesaler or in the knowledge curve of SoCal craft beer consumers, we were not able to make a success with HotD…sure wish we had the privilege to represent those great beers in our portfolio today). All that being said, suggesting that a 7.2%abv super hoppy red ale with elevated IBUs (Arrogant Bastard Ale) is in the same category as a 10% deep golden ale with more modest IBUs (Fred) is a stretch I wouldn’t make.

When it came out, Arrogant Bastard Ale was the only uber-hoppy (for the time in 1997 that is, not so much considered “uber-hoppy” by today’s standards) strong red ale of its kind that I am aware of (we didn’t have BeerAdvocate or RateBeer available to us back then to help us know the details of nearly every beer that was being brewed in the US). Is it possible that there was another big, hoppy, strong red ale being brewed somewhere by someone? Absolutely. Was Arrogant Bastard Ale the first one that really hit the radar? Yes, I believe so. When it came out, it was a very unique beer. There was very little at that time that occupied the space between the pale ales and red ales and barley wines.

On my statements about Stone IPA

In the interview I said…“Stone IPA is the longest full-time production west coast-style IPA on the planet. We first came out with it in 1997 and have been producing it ever since. I don’t think that there are any other west coast [style] IPAs that have been in production, full time, longer…that I’m aware of. But I could be wrong and I always accept that if there’s some piece of information out there that I didn’t know.”

A few moments later I said: “I was always influenced on the way. I can’t ever say that we’ve done things that weren’t influenced by others.”

First, of course, it would depend on one’s definition as to a “west coast-style IPA.” Does Bridgeport IPA (a longtime favorite of mine, by the way!) at 5.5%abv & 50 IBUs fall into that category? The company must not have thought so, as according to their website, in 1997 they chose to enter it into the GABF in the “Classic English Style Pale Ale” category winning a Gold medal, and in 1999 they entered it into the GABF’s American Style Pale Ale category and won a silver. Presumably they likely entered it in other years as well, but under what categories I do not know. Bridgeport’s own website describes the beer as “…citrusy aroma and full hop flavor, while downplaying the bitterness.”

I don’t think most folks feel that a “west coast-style IPA” downplays bitterness.

Currently, the GABF does not have a “west coast-style IPA” category, so we’ll need to look at the “American Style IPA” for our reference in the matter. ABV range is 6.3%-7.5% and IBUs range from 50-70, which, interestingly, puts Stone IPA out of the range of those style guidelines since it’s around 77 IBUs (and one of the characteristics IMO, that puts it into the “west coast” style range).

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To give them their due, and they are due a lot IMO, Anchor Brewing calls their 5.9%abv Liberty Ale “…the first modern American IPA brewed after prohibition…” However, BeerAdvocate calls it an “American Pale Ale” as does RateBeer. Clearly, interpretations vary. A quick web search told me that a few folks peg Liberty Ale’s IBUs at about 47, which is just under the range identified by the GABF, but I couldn’t find an official statement from the brewery in that regard. A search tells me that Liberty Ale won four GABF medals (all between 1988 – 1993), two of which were for the Pale Ale category, and two for the India Pale Ale category. There was not yet an “American Style IPA” category at that time, as far as I know.

So what do I think a so-called “West Coast-style IPA” might be? Essentially I see it in the space between American Style IPA and American Style Double IPA, which means abv that’s at the upper end of the American Style IPA range, and IBUs that extend into the American Style Double IPA range. Citrusy, piney and ‘dank’ aromas and flavor are also elevated past what one might expect in the American Style IPA category. With the “lupulin shift” that my friend Vinnie at Russian River (who created what was arguably one of the first-ever beers of the style: Blind Pig IPA) has oft commented on, Stone IPA might be considered now at the more ‘modest’ end of the West Coast-style IPA category.

BTW, during my research for this post, I discovered that the GABF has a great search engine for medals.

And FWIW, Stone Brewing has won a mere six medals over the years, which would not be considered a very high amount.

Regarding the idea that in the grand scheme of brewing history “…there’s nothing really new under the sun, right?”:

Actually, not so. While it’s entirely possible that malt bills and hopping rates of many of craft brewing’s “new” styles might have had occurrences in the past for which records are poor, incomplete or just plain lost, historically brewers could NOT have brewed beers that we’d be able to directly compare to some of the popular craft brewing styles today. Why? Ingredients. There are simply varieties of malts and hops available to brewers today that are, in a word, new. These newer varieties are creating flavor profiles that weren’t really available to brewers of yore. Hell, the venerable Cascade hop only came into usage in the 1960’s I believe. Combinations of malt and hops in the way they are used today, but using instead the varieties (including malting techniques) of, say, a hundred years ago, would have yielded beers that are so dramatically different that we’d say that they were different styles. IPA is a simple example. One of the key characteristics of the “American IPA” is not just how much hops are used, but the fact that the bitterness, flavor and aromatic profile is centered around newer American varieties of hops.

To paint a short analogy, while ostensibly all notes and note combinations in music were played before the advent of the electric guitar, I would support the argument that Rock and Roll, and it’s many offshoots, is actually NEW music that could not/would not have been possible during the age of what we now call Classical music. New instrumentation created the possibility for new styles of music. Similarly, new varieties of malt and hops created the possibility for new styles of beer to occur (not to mention yeast combos that while historically ‘possible’ wouldn’t have happened due to the fact that brewers didn’t have a catalog from which to order any particular strain they might want).

Regarding Ezra’s approach in the interviewEzra, I had a great time talking with you, and I don’t mind debating a few points, but it does seem that you were really looking to grind an ax with me. Personally, my axes to grind are with some of the beers and industry practices of the fizzy yellow industrial giants, not with other craft brewers. I’m not a big fan of in-fighting. Differences of opinion and healthy debates over a couple great beers? Sure! Mudslinging and calling others in the craft brewing world to the mat? I’d rather opt out. That being said, I think we managed in our conversation to keep it, even at its most dramatic, within the “healthy debate” range. Let’s try to continue that!A few random points about me and Stone to help get a better picture what we’re all about & what things I/we think are important, in no particular order:

I have been a Slow Food member since I first attended the organization’s Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy in 2000. I served on the Board for our local chapter for a couple of years. Slow Food philosophies have greatly influenced many decisions I’ve made at Stone, especially in our restaurant.

The Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens is the largest restaurant purchaser of local small farm organic produce in our region. I think this may actually be the stat that I am proudest of.

I am an unabashed environmentalist. I cancelled the trash service at my house years ago, as I generate so little. I either compost or recycle nearly everything, and I consume so little overall that my year’s recycling fits easily in my trunk…save for beer bottles of course. I drive a Volt. Before that I had a Prius. I take public transportation when I can. I signed a pledge years ago at to not consume plastic bottled water, and I’ve stuck to it. Those that follow my tweets know that I think it’s a big deal that more and more of us eschew plastic bottled water. Yeah, I’m a geek. I admit it.

I was invited to give the Keynote speech last spring to an Environmental Symposium at Cuyamaca College (9,000 students). I used my megaphone for part of the delivery of the speech, and strong images in my Powerpoint presentation. I just got a call from them this week telling me that my speech “is still being talked about,” and they asked me to give the Keynote Commencement Speech to their graduating class this coming spring. I am hugely flattered, and a bit nervous. I’ll probably leave the megaphone at home for that…but no promises, I might change my mind at the last minute.

Stone has won sustainable business of the year awards from: The California Center for Sustainable Energy, the City of Escondido, and from our County Supervisor. We’re pretty proud of that. We put a lot of energy into sustainability (no pun intended).

The Stone Anniversary Celebration & Invitational Beer Festival is one of the largest craft beer fests in SoCal. Last year alone we featured over 40 guest breweries and raised more than $250,000 for charity. Over the years the total raised for charity has easily surpassed $1,000,000.

Stone participates in at least 350 charitable events a year, and donates well over $250,000 in beer each year to these charitable events. If it’s a legit 501(c)3, they have the proper legally required licensing, and they give us a little advance notice, we say “yes” 95%+ of the time.

Our restaurant, the Stone World Bistro & Gardens, features 32 beers on tap. At any given time, we average about eight Stone beers on tap. The rest are Guest beers. Of our 130-bottle list, perhaps two are Stone beers and the rest are Guests beers. We do this because we love to showcase the beauty and the glory that is the wide world of great craft and specialty beer. We feature a new “Guest Cask” every single week, and one Stone Cask as well, giving equal billing to each. We feature a Keep The Glass each Wednesday eve, 80% of the time it is a Guest beer. As one might expect with us, there are no Domestic or Imported industrial fizzy yellow beers on our beer lists.

We feature three “special beer fests” in our Gardens every year: Oakquinox, Sour Fest and the new Pour It Black. These fest feature at least 50 special Guest beers at each one, showcasing the awesome range of variety and character available in each of the fests’ featured categories. Add to this our “Rare Beer Breakfast” during San Diego Beer Week, and I suppose you could say we have four special beer fests.

Our little-know distribution division (we don’t really have a public face for it, but everyone in the beer retailing community in SoCal knows about it), distributes beers for about 32 great craft and specialty brands. For many of the brands, we are either their #1 wholesaler (The Bruery, AleSmith, Lost Abbey / Port Brewing, Iron Fist, Black Market, Eagle Rock) or their #1 wholesaler outside of their home market (Avery, Oskar Blues, Russian River, Bear Republic, Maui), or in their Top 5 wholesalers in the US (Ommegang, Paulaner, Great Divide, Mad River, Victory, Duvel), just to name a few. In the past several years, we have grown our distributed brands in SoCal at a faster rate than we have grown Stone (admittedly, Stone has had a larger base). We have given a presence in SoCal to many great brands that might not have had interest from larger wholesalers.

I love craft beer and the craft brewing industry so much that I made an “homage” video called I Am A Craft Brewer I intentionally did not brand it in any way for Stone Brewing.

I am passionate about ethics in the craft beer retailing world, and made a video extolling the profitability benefits of bars and restaurants selling craft beer. I intentionally did not brand it in any way for Stone Brewing, other than to identify myself at the beginning so the viewer would know who was speaking.

I was the co-founder and first President of the San Diego Brewers Guild in 1996.

I have had the honor of serving as the Chair of the Brewers Association’s Events Committee (Great American Beer Festival, SAVOR, Craft Brewers Conference), and on the Brewers Associations Board of Directors. I like actively participating in the brewing community, along with many of my peers.

My first homebrew was in 1991. My biz-partner (and Stone co-founder & Brewmaster) Steve’s was 1984 or 85 I think.

When we started Stone, I thought we were too late to the game to be able to make any real mark. I now believe that there are many opportunities for new breweries to make their own marks (The Bruery, Ninkasi and Brewdog would be great examples of just the past few years).

I’m an overachiever and I try too hard. Who knows, maybe because I was picked last for dodge ball / baseball / everything when I was a kid. I’ll leave that to others to muse on. Since then I’ve helped build a company that employs 425 amazing people (150+ more expected to be hired in 2012), done my best to move forward an industry I’m passionate about, helped raise and donate a couple mil to charities…and, yes, talked a little braggadocio from time to time.

Cheers from a lazy Sunday and a big, strong pot of black coffee…time to head out and go join some friends for an equally lazy afternoon beer,

16 comments:

Greg, thank you for taking the time to respond. I know you're a busy man who can't respond to every crank on the internet--so thanks for taking the time with this one. (Reminds me of this cartoon.)

I'm sticking to my guns on this one, though. While I will readily admit to Stone's wide influence in craft brewing, it's not because you made beers the world had never seen before. It was because you made them well, helped create a brand new market for them (before Stone, as you note, lighter, less assertive craft beers dominated the market), and were an industry leader in promoting them. The beers you brewed had been brewed before, though perhaps to nowhere near the commercial success you brought to them. To me, that's Stone's legacy, and it's one most breweries in the world would kill for.

Have to agree with his feelings about the tenor of the interview. Ezra is decidedly (granted, IMO) not a good interviewer and does come off as a bit of an asshole with an axe to grind and his whole attitude and his body language are pretty antagonistic, IMO.

Not the biggest Stone fan, but his detailed and passionate response are pretty respectable.

Again, let's keep it clean, folks. Cowardly, expletive-filled, anonymous personal attacks are doomed to a short life. We're all friends here, and disagreement poses no great threat to us or the beer we love--I'm sure we can keep it civil if we try.

Jeff, you stated that you stand by your guns and don't think that Stone made beers that were never seen before. How do you respond to Greg's Imperial Red Ale assertion? Who else was making a beer like that at that time?

Stone may make great beers, but for some reason they are staying away from some mid south states. Stone is no where to be found in Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. Greg, I challange you to bring Stone to the mid south!!

Jeff, I know your point is about the history of IPA, etc. and on this I agree with you more than Greg. However, there is a much bigger issue here which I assume will be reflected in the comments and that is the personalities of Ezra and Greg.

Ezra and Greg "are who they are" and they both seem to be very proud of that fact. In Greg's case I think he has a lot of good reasons to be very proud. The environmental accomplishments are noteworthy in particular. I have a job which focuses on improving natural resource efficiencies. I cannot tell you how valuable it is to have real life case studies to point to like Stone (HUB is another good example).

As far as Ezra I don’t need to resort to name calling I can simply state the facts. I think it is pretty clear that his Blog focuses on three main things: Self-promotion, promotion of friends and character assignation of enemies (he only recently removed his “enemies” list and said himself he was reluctant to do so but was persuaded to do so by friends). He can submit some pretty interesting “news breaking” type posts but again these are focused on the promotion of self and friends. This is my opinion others may disagree. I will say that the “behind the pint” segments are nice. Unfortunately, I think this gets lost in his “strip club beer tour” personality.

Stone’s beer is really good as far as I am concerned and their collaboration stuff points to them being inclusive not exclusive. Whether you find their marketing over the top or not in the end it is all about what is in the glass and this is where they shine.

One towering example that just occurred to me on the IPA side: Sierra Nevada Celebration. They have fiddled with the recipe over the years, but it's always been an IPA with juicy, West Coast hops--the very definition of the style, if such a thing would exist. (Style geeks may note that it's listed under IPA in the BJCP.) I also looked at a couple old books to jog my memory and on the West Coast, Buffalo Bill's made Alimony Ale, variously listed as 72-100 IBUs and 7.2%. Famous in its day and definitely pre-Stone. If you use the search engine Greg identifies, you can see lots of West Coast winners in the IPA category over the years.

(Part of Greg's claims involve regular-rotation beers in continuous production, but I'm not obliged to accept this standard of novelty. The Wright Brothers aren't in business anymore, and yet still they get credit for flying first. )

Shawn, the red ales issue. I'm not going to dig through the archives to try to find strong ales that were amber-red in the olden days but not called imperial red ales because the style didn't exist. Americans had been making craft ales for twenty years by the time Arrogant Bastard came around; did none of them make a strong red ale? It's possible, but I don't find it plausible. (If we put a Martin Cornell on the case, I'm guessing he'd find quite a few examples.) It obviously wasn't the first strong ale, which was Greg's initial comment.

Ted, I'm going to skip commenting on Ezra. I didn't mean for my post to have anything to do with interpersonal dynamics between two people who are not me. Besides which, I know and like Ezra and find your characterization of his blog unfair. I have never met Greg Koch, but my guess is that if I do, I'll like him, too.

It just seems that whenever Stone is brought up, it's with a negative connotation. Maybe my brain is just cherry-picking, but it seems like the posts are about their personalities and not their beer. Sure, the personalities are strong, and some people don't like them, but how about some posts on their beer? It seems like a lot of people have an ax to grind with them.

Plus, the comment on Ezra's blog - have you read The New School blog? Do you think that's any better? I had to stop reading it because of the childish, demeaning things that were posted there.

Perhaps a bit off-topic but related to "first-of-a-style" claims, I hadn't read the beer descriptions on the recently revamped Anchor website until Greg pointed it out and you linked to it, but how does Liberty Ale claim to be either the "...the first modern American IPA brewed after prohibition..." or "...the first modern American dry-hopped ale"?

When does this "modern" period start, and if it's well after Repeal, why then mention "after prohibition"? There were a number of US India Pale Ales brewed after Repeal (and even more "stock ales"), and many ales and beers that were dry hopped. Two that still existed when Liberty hit the market were Falstaff's Ballantine India Pale Ale and Ortlieb's Nueweiler Cream Ale (which was dry-hopped).

Does "modern" mean simply after Maytag bought Anchor, so roughly the "craft era", or after the introduction of Cascade hops in the '70's?

Maytag, by the way, stated "...I did not think of an India Pale Ale when I made it" in his interview with Lew Bryson here http://www.lewbryson.com/talkmaytag.htm

Arguing about the first brewery that made the first style of a popular style of beer is trivial and pointless. It is like arguing about who created punk music. No one really knows. Craft beers were in its infancy . However Greg Koch is right to a point as he was one of the first to bring psychotically-hopped beers to a wide reaching audience.

I may have misunderstood the comment, but it sounded like you were saying that Sierra Nevada Celebration is a west-coast style IPA. Not even close. Great, great, beer, but to me it is mildly hoppy, at best (and that is if you can find a fresh one).

@Jim: lupulin shift aside, I don't think I'd call 65 IBU 'mildly' hoppy. As far as I know SN's never called Celebration a west coast IPA, but I think Jeff may be onto something in pointing to it as one of the progenitors of the 'style'.

Debates on who did what first, what style is this, and personality clashes do not affect my enjoyment of Stone in the least. All I know is that Stone is a great brewery and is more than willing to try something different. Keep it up Greg.

I really don't even understand the tactics taken in these videos. I don't mean to insult the interviewer, but I just watched the second video of this series and nearly an entire half hour was spent arguing about Black IPA vs CDA. You have the CEO of one of the country's most successful craft brewing companies sitting in front of you and THAT'S what you ask him about? And it's drawn out over the course of 27+ minutes? A topic that few people in this country even care about? I just don't get it.